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Tuesday Nights in 1980 by Molly Prentiss

I love writing that’s about art, culture, and a certain sort of downtown cool. It follows several different threads throughout the year. They’re all connected by the art world, and it winds up saying something really compelling about creativity and family.

What I really walked away with is the idea that a family is like a work of art, it’s a creative process. It’s something ongoing, not automatically given. It’s a collaboration between people, that can have dissonance, but can also create something really beautiful.

There’s a certain assumption of knowledge. It helps if you know a few things about the politics in Argentina, and about the art scene of this era, but it does give you enough information to get along. If you know more there are some fun easter eggs sprinkled in. I’m not super well read in the art world, but I could follow along, and the references all made sense.

There’s a bit about the aphasia a little bit corny, but obviously a very fun metaphor to play with. Having an art critic with aphasia is so convenient that it almost feels like cheating, but I’m willing to let it slide because the descriptions were so lovely to read.

It’s a novel about people who love art, and love creating art, and that comes across wonderfully. It gets to the romance of art, the passionate relationship that we have as observers and as creators. These relationship can become destructive, and that makes for an interesting story, but even at their most chaotic, there’s beauty as well.